<p>Sydney, 11 September 2006 – DST International (DSTi), the leader in business solutions for the financial services industry, today launched its locally-developed Unit Pricing Workbench for Australian investment managers. The sophisticated investment management tool was developed in response to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) November 2005 findings relating to best practice market discipline surrounding unit pricing systems.</p><p>As part of its ongoing prudential commitments, APRA reviews aspects of unit pricing practice and ascertains how product providers assess and comply with their unit pricing obligations. In its last review of market practices APRA highlighted a number of issues relating to calculation errors and summarised that when large errors arise they tend to be very large and subsequently very costly.</p><p>The introduction of DSTi’s Unit Pricing Workbench, as part of its HiPortfolio/3 Investment Accounting Solution, allows institutions to proactively manage unit pricing output on an ‘exception’ basis throughout the pricing lifecycle. Progress can then be monitored on a real time basis.</p><p>According to DSTi’s CEO, Ian Mathieson, “This enhancement is designed for clients who manage unit trusts for investors as well as those who provide a custodial service for unit trust managers in accordance with APRA’s recommendations. Essentially the Workbench, amongst other things, allows you to create and maintain a benchmark index and measure the performance of a unit trust against that benchmark index.”</p><p>The major improvements for DSTi’s existing HiPortfolio clients implementing the Unit Pricing Workbench now focus on increased user efficiency and client servicing. The HiPortfolio/3 Unit Pricing Workbench incorporates a suite of business processes designed to provide a consolidated view of unit pricing functions from start to finish.</p><p>“Investors often query the performance of a unit trust and this can take investment managers up to two hours to generate reports. The new Unit Pricing Workbench provides a Unit Trust Variance Report for instant analysis of the unit trust’s assets, once a price is calculated,” Mr. Mathieson continued.</p><p>“Furthermore any organisation that can provide more accurate, substantiated and timely information to an investor’s queries regarding unit prices is always going to lead in the area of client servicing,” he concluded.</p><p>DSTi’s Unit Pricing Workbench has been developed at the company’s Melbourne-based Research &amp; Development Centre. The solution is available for implementation immediately. The Unit Pricing Workbench has been initially launched in the Australian market; however the key aims and objectives of the solution make it ideal for global application.</p><p>HiPortfolio/3 is DSTi’s strategic transaction processing and investment accounting solution. The HiPortfolio platform is used by over 250 organisations in 35 countries worldwide. Its flexible nature and truly multi-currency and multi-instrument capability allow it to support different types of business on a single system.</p><p>EndsAbout DST International (DSTi)With 19 offices and over 1500 professionals to support its growing client base, DST International provides a unique and comprehensive range of investment management and business process management software solutions and related services to 700 clients in 55 countries. http://www.dstinternational.com</p><p>About our parent company DST Systems, Inc.DST Systems, Inc. provides sophisticated information processing and computer software services and products that help clients improve productivity, increase efficiencies, and provide higher levels of customer service. DST is organized within the US and internationally into two operating segments: Financial Services and Output Solutions. DST operates one of the most advanced data centers in the world, which provides information-processing services to support the products within each operating segment. These products are further enhanced through the integration of DST’s advanced technology and e-commerce solutions.</p><p>For further information or media interviews please contact:</p><p>Cathryn van der Walt12 WorldsTel: +61 (0) 402 327 633Email: cathryn@12worlds.com</p>

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